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“I Put The Game On Me”

If you want to know why the Bucs lost, look no further than the rushing statistics. In the first half, Bobby Rainey’s longest run was four yards. He averaged 1.1 yards in the first half.

He damned near doubled that amount in the second half, finishing with 1.9 yards a carry.

The main reason Rainey had such putrid numbers was that time after time after time after time the Bucs tried to run the ball up the one hole, between Jamon Meredith (who was totally worked over by the Rams and benched for Ted Larsen) and center Jeremy Zuttah.

Despite banging their heads against the wall, Bucs offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan almost refused to try anything else. The few times he did, Rainey had a nice little runs.

By midway through the second quarter it was clear this play was not going to work. Yet time and time and time again, Sullivan (on orders?) kept pounding Rainey. It didn’t take someone running around with a white cane to figure out this play was dead.

Rainey is not Larry Csonka. He can’t run through a mountain of men. He was getting drilled by three guys by the time he got to the line of scrimmage. If everyone in the friggin’ Ed Jones dome could see this, if just about everyone half-sober watching on TV could see this, then why did not the Bucs coaching staff?

“I put the game on me,” Rainey said after the game, referring to his fumble that gave the Rams some life.

No, Bobby, the game was not on you. If was on the guys wearing black shirts on the Bucs sideline that were asking you to do the impossible.

16 Responses to ““I Put The Game On Me””

Completely agree joe. Rainey did the best he could. There was no where to run. The rams knew where we gonna run and they stopped it. We didn’t do anything different from the past 14 games, and they are good enough up front to stop it.

I have never in my life seen such stubbornness on playcalling, and I’ve watched a lot of football. It doesn’t matter if we are winning or losing, we are going to run up the middle on first (and often second) down. It makes no difference if time and time again it either loses yards or has no gain. It makes no difference if the opponent has a great D-Line and has stacked the box. It makes no difference if we had previous success moving the ball through the air. It’s absolutely unbelievable, and incredibly frustrating. That’s all I have to say about that.

It would be hard for me to believe that Schiano is “ordering” Sullivan to run and cramming the offense down his throat because Sully is a scapegoat….our Offense is a disaster..the defense….not so bad and would be much better if we could stay on the field on offense.
If Schiano is controlling the offense, then everyone will know and he has put himself in further jeopardy.

@ Hawaiian Buc
“I have never in my life seen such stubbornness on playcalling, and I’ve watched a lot of football.”
Obviously you didn’t watch ‘The Dungy Years’. I pulled my hair so much, that by the time the Glazers (finally) gave him the boot, I looked like Yul Brenner. I know Sullivan doesn’t have a lot to work with, but if the logical course of action doesn’t work, then try the illogical. Sullivan may feel like he’s banging his head against a wall, but Rainey and Glennon are the ones feeling the pain. IMO, it’s too late for him to have an epiphany. Even if he came out with a wild, wide open offense, in the last game, *I* would consider it too late.
I’m not in favor of dumping Schiano, yet (the Glazers gave Dungy *three years* to straighten up), but I expect to see a different team (next year) starting with the preseason.